Chapter 2 - THE SECOND WILL
The woman in the doorway was my Aunt Rebecca, my mother's estranged younger sister.
I had not seen her since I was seventeen.
My parents said she had stolen money from Grandma and moved to Arizona.
Yet there she stood in a faded denim jacket, holding the exact brass key that had vanished from Grandpa's ring.
"Don't let Caldwell take that photograph," she told me.
His face turned colorless.
"Rebecca," he said, "this is not the time."
She laughed without humor.
"That's what you told me twelve years ago, when Richard was stealing from my parents and you were afraid of destroying the family."
I moved between them.
"One of you needs to tell me the truth."
Rebecca gave me the key, but it no longer mattered: the storage room had been opened already.
"Your father came back last Sunday," she said.
"He knew the investigation was close.
He took the strongbox because there was something inside he couldn't afford to have examined."
Caldwell said the house cameras had shown no intruder.
Rebecca pointed toward the ceiling.
"The camera above the garage was disabled for precisely forty-three minutes.
Ask the security company."
She took a folded document from her jacket: an earlier version of Grandma's will.
In it, Grandma left money to each of her daughters, contingent on their returning funds improperly taken from her accounts.
Mom had apparently failed the condition; Rebecca had accepted it and repaid what she owed.
"I wasn't innocent," Rebecca admitted.
"I borrowed money without permission when I was broke.
Your grandmother gave me a chance to make it right.
Your mother wanted to make the debt disappear."
I tried to read the clauses through the pounding in my head.
The paper did not replace the later trust; Caldwell confirmed that immediately.
But it described a beneficiary I had never heard of: Thomas Avery, a minor child for whom Grandpa had set aside a separate education fund.
The surname meant nothing to me.
Rebecca looked toward the photo in Caldwell's hands.
"The little boy," she said.
"His name was Tommy."
"Who was he to Grandpa?"
I asked.
Rebecca's eyes filled, but she didn't turn away.
"Someone your grandfather was trying to protect.
The people who took the money were after his fund too."
I pressed her for details.
Caldwell interrupted with a ringing phone.
It was Miller.
He had just discovered that the forged debt statements included account numbers belonging to a trust established for Thomas Avery.
"We need the original records," Miller said.
"And you need to know something else."
He paused.
"Your sister has offered a statement in exchange for a deal.
She claims you and Caldwell fabricated the blue binder together."
I stared at the pages on the table.
For forty-eight hours I had believed the evidence would speak for itself.
Now my family was teaching me how easily truth could be put on trial.
Rebecca gripped my arm.
"You need the photograph's negative.
Your grandfather hid it where he'd know you'd look."
I knew the place instantly: the wooden birdhouse behind the kitchen window.
When I reached for the door, a dark sedan accelerated from the curb.
May you like
Someone inside lifted a phone and photographed us through the glass.
